The present invention relates to a landing device for landing an aircraft thereon. In particular, the present invention relates to a landing device for a span-wise loaded aircraft type, where the mass is uniformly distributed over the wing span.
A high altitude long endurance aircraft (HALE aircraft), such as a high altitude pseudo-satellite aircraft (HAPS aircraft) is designed to have a very good lift coefficient and is also very light, e.g., around or less than 50 kg including payload. These types of aircraft usually have a long wingspan of 25 m or more. Typically, the majority of the load (energy system, motoric, avionic, payload, etc.) is uniformly distributed over the wing, while the body (fuselage) of the aircraft has very small dimensions or is omitted entirely.
However, the design of these aircraft is very filigree and delicate, which usually results in difficulties when launching and landing the aircraft. While the aircraft may be started with a group of people holding and pushing the aircraft, the landing may result in a damage of the aircraft, and in particular the wing. Due to its size, the wing is likely to touch ground first on a single point, e.g., if there is a small pitch or rolling of the aircraft shortly before touching ground. Landing on a single point leads to a concentrated load for which the wing is not designed, so that the wing is at risk to break due to structure failure.
To avoid such damage, these aircraft types are equipped with multiple skids provided at the main body (the central part of the aircraft) and at a bottom side of the wing on each side of the main body. Such skids, however, mean additional weight to the aircraft structure.